


Misguided Ghosts

by culture_forbids



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Ghosts, Homophobia, M/M, Oneshot, Paramore (Band), Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Songfic, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 14:52:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8331961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/culture_forbids/pseuds/culture_forbids
Summary: “I’m going away for awhile,” I mutter, standing awkwardly in Josh’s front door frame. Josh squares his jaw as if to hold back his words.“But you’ll be back?” He asks quietly. I bite my lip and look up towards the pale gray sky.“Don’t try to follow me, ok? This path I’m taking doesn’t involve you,” I say slowly, each word like a knife in my chest.(misguided ghosts by paramore song fic)





	

**Author's Note:**

> tw: suicide, major character death, self harm, homphobia

“I’m going away for awhile,” I mutter, standing awkwardly in Josh’s front door frame. Josh squares his jaw as if to hold back his words.

“But you’ll be back?” He asks quietly. I bite my lip and look up towards the pale gray sky.

“Don’t try to follow me, ok? This path I’m taking doesn’t involve you,” I say slowly, each word like a knife in my chest.

“Ty, don’t do this! Whatever you’re parents are telling you is all lies!” Josh stammers, desperation creeping into his raw words. I felt the cool prick of tears behind my eyes and take a shaky breath.

I stand in silence for a second, mulling over what to say when Josh sniffles and interrupts the quiet.

“I don’t understand why you’re choosing them over me, but you have to promise me you’ll return as soon as possible,” Josh says shakily, emotion threatening to pour out of him with every word. 

“See, I'm trying to find my place, but it might not be here where I feel safe,” I say, looking up into his bloodshot eyes.

His shoulders shake and just at emotion begins to pour from his eyes, the sky begins to pour on me. I take one last glance at the boy I love before running down his front drive for the last time in a long while.

\--

I’m sitting in the cold, brick and concrete church, a chilly January breeze swirling around my ankles. 

The wooden pew under me is hard and is making my back ache more and more with every ticking second.

Due to the blizzard whipping through Columbus most of the churchgoers have decided to miss today, so the pews feel especially drafty and empty.

My eyes scan the heads scattered around the room until they freeze on cotton candy curls. 

I whip my head back towards the front of the room and focus on the preacher.

“We all learn to make mistakes,” He says calmly, his words echoing around the stone building. His words seem harmless enough but I know his words pack a heartless, cruel punch. A message of warning to all the other people in the church.

My heart shudders in my chest and I can feel my mother's watchful eyes on me.

She reaches over and places a hand on my knee, almost as if to reassure me what I did was ok in some sick way. The fact that I feel in love with someone who I’m not supposed to. I know its not ok, I’m a sinner and God knows it. Everyone in this place knows it. 

Suddenly I hear the squeaking of converse against concrete flooring and look up to see Josh, with his candy floss hair rushing out of the building. 

Something in my aching heart breaks at the sight of him running away, running away from his mistakes with no direction.

Without recognizing it, I’m up and running too. I race down the aisle and out the huge wooden doors, my family screeching after me. 

Yelling I’m going to burn in hell if I try to comfort that _sinner_ Joshua Dun.

I don’t hear them though and I run out into the snow swept streets of Columbus.

I spot Josh sprinting down the snow covered sidewalk and run right after him.

We can both run from our mistakes, run from them with no conviction.

\--

I’m sitting in my shower late at night. Burning water cascading over my shivering and chilled body. My stomach is empty and my body frozen and sore. As soon as I stopped Josh in the frost kissed park he looked at me with hurt eyes. 

Hurt eyes that held so much pain, so much suffering all I could do was cry for him and melt into his arms.

Soon though my tears froze to my cheeks and my fingers began to grow numb and lifeless so he walked me home, his frost eroded hand in mine.

“Are you ok?” He asked, halfway home.

“I’m fine, the cold doesn’t bother me. I’m just one of those ghosts you know? Traveling endlessly? When you travel so much things like cold and heat don’t bother you as much,” I replied softly. He nodded, understanding my poetic language as only one who has loved you and taken the time to understand you could’ve.

Josh lead us through an ice covered forest, filled with snowdrifts and flurries.

“Why aren’t we taking a path?” I asked, as Josh helped me through a waist deep swell of snow.

“We don’t need roads to get home,” He laughed, his rosey red and winter touched cheeks smiling at me. “Plus, it makes it harder for our parents to follow us.”

“They follow me anyways,” I sigh through my pale blue lips.

“Then let's just go in circles,” Josh grins, leading me towards an unknown location.

\--

“This is life Tyler! You chose to be this way, you chose to live your life in suffering,” My father’s words echo in my brain and I roll over in bed. My teeth are chattering from the adrenaline of getting yelled at and the frost Josh and I endured.

My rough and worn flannel sheets scratch against my new scars placed in neat, straight little lines on my thighs.

Seven, seven for the amount of times my father told me I should burn in hell. Seven for the amount of times my mother told me I wasn’t her _pure little boy_ anymore. Seven for the amount of times I thought of burrowing into Josh’s warm arms to get away from their reprimands. Seven for the amount of times I got mad at myself for seeking comfort in something so sinful.

The pain is just a simple compromise, I remind myself. The cuts are just a vessel so I can get what I want out of it.

The cuts bring pain, pain brings suffering.

And suffering is what I deserve.

I drift to sleep to thoughts of flames engulfing me, burning my throat and fuzzying my eyesight.

Suffering is what I deserve.

\--

“Would someone care to classify or explain what the author meant while writing this poem?” Our english teacher asks from the front of the class.

I sit stock still in my seat, my hands clasped in my lap firmly.

“Mr. Dun,” She speaks cooly, pointing at the baby pink haired boy.

“He was saying that when you have a broken heart and a twisted mind, you need someone to share your suffering with; Someone you can always rely on. Someone you can run to, full speed ahead,” Josh says, throwing a meaningful look at me. I duck my head.

It’s been seven days since Josh and I’s _incident_. 

Seven days, seven more nights without dinner, 49 new little itsy-bitsy tally marks on the inside of my thighs. My forearms. My hipbones. My ankles.

Seven more days of suffering, alone.

The bell rings, sharp and metallic, and I stand shakily. Every new cut screaming in agony as they brush against my rough jeans, wool socks, or worn hoodie.

I stiffly walk out of the classroom and past the boy who’s made me inflict his pain upon myself.

I wind and make my way through the crowds of people in the cold hallways towards the unused bathroom in the East Wing.

I pull open the heavy door and enter the empty tiled room. I slouch down against the wall, tugging off my hoodie so I can reapply my bloodied gauze. 

The icey tiles sting my bare back but I ignore my discomfort.

I’m reaching down into my bag when the doors swings open. I freeze.

The boy with the cotton candy hair enters. He closes the door quietly behind him and casts his gaze towards me. I know I look skeletal after only a couple days of not eating full meals, I know my eyes have dark purple shadows under them and I know I have bloody bandages bound up my wrists.

“Tyler,” He begins then pauses.

“Josh, don’t look at me please,” I mutter, reaching for my hoodie. I begin to tug it over my head when I feel his presence slouching down on the cool tile next to me.

“You’re not useless ok, you don’t deserve this suffering,” He says slowly, looking straight ahead at the wall.

I scoff and tug on my hoodie, noting the red spotting on the cuffs.

“We misguided ghosts Josh, hopeless sinners with no future traveling endlessly,” I say before standing up and storming out of the bathroom, the door swinging angrily in my wake.

The pink haired boy sits on the tile floor, head resting in his hands, his shoulders shaking with breathless sobs.

Look what we’ve become.

\--  
Seven more days pass, 49 more tally marks until one day I decide tally marks are too small, the pain only minor. 

I leave note on the tub ledge, next to my lifeless body. Blood stains my wrists and the white acrylic bathtub. 

 

96 little scars litter my body. The final two scar are long and jagged up my forearms, counting 97 and 98.

When my mom comes home from work she goes upstairs and finds me, dead and breathless in the clawfoot tub. Her words catch in her throat.

She doesn’t read the note at my funeral, Josh, the boy with bubblegum pink hair does. 

His voice is interpreted with sobs and his shoulders shake. 

_“We are just_  
Misguided ghosts  
Travelin' endlessly  
The ones we trusted the most  
Pushed us far away  
And there's no one road  
We should not be the same  
But I'm just a ghost  
And still they echo me  
They echo me in circles” 

I’m leaning against a nearby tree, watching my service go on in miserable silence. My own words ring around me. They do echo, loud and mournful.

Josh wipes his eyes as he places a single white rose on my coffin before they lower me into the ground.

I look over at him and somehow catch his eye. He blinks incredulously but he's only able to see me for a second, before I flicker back into my own realm of death.

I turn on my heel, walking across the frost covered grass towards the horizon.

I’m just a misguided ghost, traveling endlessly now.

**Author's Note:**

> ok, so this is my first time writing a oneshot and a songfic. i hope its ok? tbh this fic triggered even me while writing it, but i felt like i needed to let off some steam so have some angsty sad teens. i hope you like it, leave some comments maybe?
> 
> i highly recommend listening to 'peace song' by never shout never or 'these four words' by the maine after this fic if u wanna cry, they're very good :)


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